Please, No Rush, Just Serve Whenever You're Ready

By

Carl Bialik

Updated Sept. 10, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Tennis has become a waiting game.

Players have been toweling, ball selecting and bouncing their way to rule-breaking delays between points at the U.S. Open. The Open and the other three major tournaments require players to take no more than 20 seconds between points. But players have been routinely flouting the rules. The Wall Street Journal timed more than 1,000 serves over the first 10 days of the tournament and found that men exceed the limit 48% of the time, while women do 62% of the time.

ENLARGE

Maria Sharapova getting ready to serve Monday.
Associated Press

The delays have irked officials at the United States Tennis Association, which runs the tournament. "It's like they just finished the marathon, the way they walk back to the baseline," says USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier. If everyone moved as briskly as the faster-paced players, "these 3½-hour matches would take two hours and 45 minutes."

The USTA hasn't done much to enforce the rules at this tournament, though. Through Wednesday, men and women in the pro singles draws had played nearly 43,000 points. And chair umpires, who are equipped with stopwatches to time players' breaks, had warned players just eight times. None paid a real price for the delays, because it takes two violations in a match to lose a point.

The problem stems in part from tennis's splintered management structure. Different organizations run each major tournament, linked by a governing committee. Then separate organizations run the men's and women's tour—the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women's Tennis Association. They don't even have consistent time limits: It's 20 seconds at women's events outside the majors, 25 at men's. "We've discussed this portion of the rules with both the WTA Tour and ATP Tour," says Mr. Widmaier. "The key here, overall for the competition and for the players, is that it has to be done consistently throughout the calendar, so that there are no surprises at any one particular event."

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A spokeswoman for the ATP Tour says it doesn't have a count of violations issued at tour events this year. Chair umpires "are allowed to use discretion when there are outside factors that may have contributed to a delay."

There certainly have been some mitigating factors at this year's Open. First, extreme heat left some players needing more recovery time between points. Then, wind created errant service tosses and spread debris on courts. Players might face opponents who hit few unforced errors and generate long rallies, or opponents who, even when they are returning serve, delay play with towel breaks and other rituals. (To avoid outliers, The Journal didn't include challenges, nor a game's first serve, nor times when a player changed a racket midgame.)

U.S. Open Photos: Day 11

Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland returns a shot to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia during their quarterfinal match. Associated Press

But for the most part, servers dictate the pace of play. And the biggest factors were whether players regularly toweled off and had extended rituals for selecting from among three or more balls. Players also took longer and bounced the ball more after losing a point than after winning one. Bouncing the ball before the serve mattered, but not as much. Fernando Verdasco took about 50% more bounces, on average, than Janko Tipsarevic, but Mr. Verdasco averaged 10 fewer seconds per serve. Maria Sharapova is one of the slowest women despite not bouncing the ball much, thanks to her unique pre-serve rituals.

The differences transcend gender: Women delay longer than men, though both, on average, exceed the time limit. And they transcend nationalities. Rafael Nadal is among the slowest, while fellow Spaniard Mr. Verdasco is among the fastest.

Even in the same conditions, delays varied depending on who was playing. In Sunday's first match at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Kim Clijsters and Ana Ivanovic moved briskly between points, cramming 1.95 points in every minute of Ms. Clijsters's straight-set win.

In the next match at Ashe, Venus Williams and Shahar Peer slogged their way through a straight-set Williams win, fitting just 1.31 points into each minute. If the Williams-Peer match had moved between points as quickly as the prior match, it would have lasted 21 minutes fewer. Such differences matter at a tournament where several night sessions have been delayed because the day session went late.

You've Been Served

We measured the time it took 54 players to take their first serve during the U.S. Open and came up with who were the fastest and slowest, on average.*

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